At 89%, the download stuttered. She held her breath. It resumed.

“Alive. Thank you. How do I repay you?”

Lena’s eyes drifted to a dusty sticky note on the side of her monitor. A name and a phone number: Frank – Ex-Cisco T3 – owes me.

At 100%, she copied the image to a fresh USB, yanked the console cable, and power-cycled the ASR. The fans roared. The bootloader blinked amber, then green.